Rob McElhenney takes the duty of care he has as co-owner of Wrexham very seriously.
With Phil Parkinson yet to accept what remains the nadir of the club’s return to the EFL after a 15-year non-League exile, the co-owner contacted his manager shortly after September’s 5-0 thrashing at Stockport County by text.
Hollywood actor and writer McElhenney did something similar to Paul Mullin in the latter’s run of eight games without a goal — comfortably the striker’s most barren spell in almost five years.
The level-headed Liverpudlian’s answer was no surprise. “I feel pretty good,” he told McElhenney, “it’s just a matter of time.”
The inner conviction within Mullin that reassured his American boss was not an act. Speak to anyone close to the player and they will wax lyrical about how confident he is that the scoring tide is about to turn for him, even though Wrexham have lost the League Two promotion race.
There is no re-watching old clips of him scoring for fun, as many footballers do on goalless runs. Mullin didn’t miss the opportunities that got away either. He simply told anyone who asked, including McElhenney, that the next one would go to the net.
Such a steadfast belief explains why, after his 649-minute wait for a goal with a stoppage-time equalizer from the penalty spot to get a point away against Forest Green Rovers on Tuesday, Mullin celebrated his sixth hat-trick in less than three seasons. with the club in north Wales just four days later.
Ending unwanted runs is not only a lesson in maintaining self-belief but also the need for timely reminders of what a player does best. Mullin spent the day before that 1-1 draw with Forest Green taking part in a one-man shooting exercise that seemed, to onlookers, no more scientific than simply being urged to hit the ball as far as possible .
To put himself through this extra effort when he’s still reeling from a back injury that required a pain-killing injection earlier this week underscores his determination to end what has been an unprecedented — in recent memory, anyway – drought.
Mullin scores from the spot against Forest Green Rovers (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Last season, for example, the longest Mullin didn’t find the net was two games (which happened three times). The year before that – his first at Wrexham – there was a five-match gap between goals at Christmas, but the team still won three of those five occasions so the focus was largely elsewhere.
This time around, the 29-year-old’s goals have temporarily dried up alongside poor results — five of those eight matches have been lost, with just two wins, and without his dramatic 93rd-minute equaliser, the Wrexham is Forest Green.
It’s no wonder that a priority for the coaching staff in February is getting their talisman back to his natural best. Not only in terms of scoring goals but also running in behind defenses which is so important to how Wrexham play.
These have become less and less, meaning opportunities for the ball to stick forward to allow midfielders and wing-backs to move forward en masse have also hit. The result is a team that doesn’t look as cohesive as their results suggest, especially away from home.
Indicate individual shooting drill after training.
It lasted nearly 10 minutes, with assistant manager Steve Parkin on hand, urging the striker to get his foot on the ball. Several shots flew past the goalkeeper into the top corner. Others walk harmlessly into the target. But it doesn’t matter. Instead, for those watching from the sidelines, the intention seemed to remind Mullin just how much power he has in his boots.
Whether that played a part in the return to scoring ways the next night we’ll never know, but there was a brutal ferocity to his penalty — and an earlier shot that ricocheted just over the crossbar — that MK Dons lacked when faced with and Gillingham in the last eight days.
Saturday’s second hat-trick goal in the 4-0 home win over Accrington was similar. Mullin hit his 25-yard shot with confidence that goalkeeper Radek Vitek had no chance.
All the added extras that made Mullin a key cog in the Wrexham attacking machine were also in evidence, including a darting run in behind the opposition defense which led to the striker setting up Elliot Lee’s goal which was completed the scoring before half-time.
Their main man is back.
This weekend’s visit to Morecambe will see Mullin in familiar ground.
He spent three years there as a youth player, following his release by Huddersfield Town in 2014 at the age of 19 without making a senior appearance.
Mullin never got rich in Morecambe. His first contract was worth just £200 per week. But those three periods brought important groundwork. He also scored 25 goals in 122 league appearances — with more than half of those coming from the bench. Mullin felt he deserved the starting role.
Back then, as one of the few members of the Morecambe squad — managed by Jim Bentley — who lived on the Lancashire coast in Liverpool, Mullin regularly shared the car in training. Teams of four will take turns driving.
For those who were part of those 150-mile round trips, a lasting memory is how the young striker tried to channel that disappointment at not being positively selected. Where some might have blamed the manager — to this day, Mullin credits Bentley with being a positive influence on his career — he instead did everything to try to get into the team.
Mullin’s recent goal drought is his longest at Wrexham (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
He did running sessions on the town’s beach in his own time, as well as grueling work with weights to bulk up. He wanted to be more in line with the physically imposing role of the single front demanded by Bentley’s system.
Later, Mullin realized his mistake. His game has always been about using skill and speed — but now, with so much muscle he’s packed on, he feels heavy. He learned a lesson about the need to stick to your own beliefs.
This has no doubt helped him navigate not only a recent barren run in front of goal but also Wrexham’s signing of fellow forward Jack Marriott on deadline day at the start of last month.
The arrival of Marriott, who has been playing in the second-tier Championship for the past two years and has more than 100 career appearances in that division, is being billed as a form of attack that, even accounting for Mullin reaching double figures for the season in mid-January, has struggled more for goals since the club’s return to the EFL. But, as made clear by one-on-one substitutions from the bench in six of Marriott’s eight appearances, the newcomer is direct competition for Mullin.
Mullin recently ruled the roost. He has started from the bench just once in more than 100 league appearances for Wrexham — and even that came on his return from a collapsed lung and four broken ribs he suffered on the US tour last summer. It will naturally go to the jar.
But it also triggers a great trait of wanting to prove people wrong. It has burned inside him since being released by his beloved Liverpool at the age of 16. This desire perhaps explains why Mullin is a constant presence in training despite the discomfort of that back issue. This problem has led to medical teams taking advantage of a rare blank Tuesday this week to administer that pain-killing injection.
Those who know Mullin can only say one thing: what you see is what you get from someone who still lives near his childhood home in Litherland, a northern district of Liverpool. Life with lover Mollie and son Albi is so good that even serious interest from second division Saudi Arabia in the summer could not tempt him. Family and friends had long since realized the futility of trying to contact Mullin after 9pm, knowing full well he would be asleep by then, resting for training or the next day’s match, or not far behind .
Even McElhenney, who once claimed that only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were more popular footballers in the US than his No 10 thanks to the Emmy Award-winning documentary series Welcome To Wrexham, admitted: “Sometimes , I want to get someone to tell me how good he is. But it’s always the same (from Mullin): ‘I just put in a shift, I do my job and I go back to my family’. Every week! ”
Mullin has been a key star for Wrexham owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
This gullible attitude, however, again helps explain how Mullin got through that recent dry spell in front of goal.
It was his longest since going 16 league and cup appearances without scoring for Tranmere Rovers — either side of three months as an unused substitute or absent from the matchday squad — at the end of the 2018-19 League Two season and the start of next campaign in League One.
He also has a sense of perspective brought on by four-year-old Albi’s autism diagnosis. That said, there were those in and around the dressing room who insisted the striker “looked six inches higher” after the point-rescuing penalty against Forest Green, suggesting there was a huge sense of relief when the ball finds the net.
So, what now? Firstly, he is itching to continue an impressive scoring record against Morecambe, having scored eight times against them in the past three meetings with Cambridge United and now Wrexham.
Then, given all is well following this week’s jab on his back, there is the twin target of a second straight promotion and joining an exclusive club of Wrexham strikers to reach 100 goals. Mullin is joint-eighth on their all-time scorers list, five shy of three figures from 129 appearances.
If he goes ahead and reaches that landmark this season, Wrexham are likely to celebrate a first ever back-to-back promotions and a return to the third tier for the first time since 2004-05.
It would be a fitting end to a significant year for their on-pitch talisman.
(Top image: Getty Images)
